Green Day

You’re in the most popular punk rock band of all time, your 1994
major label debut sold 10 million units, and it’s been an upward
spiral ever since: umpteen Platinum-selling albums (65 million worldwide), a smash
Broadway musical, enough Grammys to prop open a door made of Ununoctium, and a John
Varvatos advert that shouts “sell out!”—but you’re smarter than that. So what do Green Day’s Billie
Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tré Cool do for an encore? After the 3D production glamour of their
2009 Butch Vig-produced opus 21st Century Breakdown, the band reacted by going underground,
kicking in the jams, and attempting to recapture/reinvent their punk-rock soul.
Recalling the riotous count-off to Sam the
Sham and the Pharaohs’ insane 1965 hit,
“Wooly Bully,” ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, and ¡Tré! are
Green Day’s response to anyone who ever
asked, ‘’Whatever happened to the real Green
Day?” A song-packed trinity of punk-rock
primitiveness, ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, and ¡Tré! were
recorded over a three-month period in Green
Day’s Jingletown Recording Studios (formerly
Studio 880) in Oakland, CA, but not before
a major studio renovation, the purchase of a
vintage Neve desk, and a bare-bones recording
approach established the band’s new normal.
But Billie Joe, why three albums?

“Because we had a sh*tload of songs!”
Armstrong exclaims from a tour stop in
Zurich. “We had about 70 songs and we
were having fun. But we stayed away from
being in a professional studio altogether;
we thought, ‘Let’s just stay at Jingletown
and jam these songs out.’ Before we knew
it we had it down to 30-something songs.
We didn’t want to do a double or triple
record, so we just decided to release in
three volumes: ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, ¡Tré! We
thought it was funny.”

Green Day reunited with career-long
producer and Warner Bros label boss Rob
Cavallo, who pondered the psychological
implications of releasing three albums
successively within three months.

“What is the journey of these three albums
and how will we present these to the fans?”
Cavallo mused. “What is the intuitive nature
that will make a song feel like a ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!,
or ¡Tré! song? Billie knew what he was trying
to say on¡Uno!: that feeling of hope and fun
and excitement before a party. Then ¡Dos! is
the party, just going for animalistic hedonistic
enjoyment, just wrecking yourself. Then ¡Tré!
is the next morning where you’re reflective
and hung-over.”

Armstrong began writing and demoing
songs in 2010 while performing as St. Jimmy
in American Idiot: The Musical, on Broadway.
Every night after the show, he’d return to
his New York apartment and write, working
up songs on guitar, bass, and drums and
tracking everything, including vocals, on a
small portable studio rig. Longtime Green
Day engineer (and tour videographer) Chris
Dugan details the setup: “There are four mics
on the drums: kick, Shure Beta 52; snare,
Telefunken M80; sort of an ‘over-under’ stereo
mic setup to get the toms and cymbals with a
pair of AKG 414s. Armstrong tracks his guitar
and bass through a Line 6 POD. And he sings
into a Shure SM7. These are all connected to
a Mackie 1604 mixer. The stereo L/R outputs
are sent to the line inputs of an MBox. All of
the levels are set on the 1604. He monitors
through a pair of Dynaudio BM6As.”

“There’s no such thing as writer’s block,”
he says. “‘F*ck it,’ I thought, ‘I am going to
write whatever I want and somehow it will
find its way.’ I set up this little studio in my
apartment in New York and at night I would
do St. Jimmy, and the songs just kept coming,
and I kept recording. Then back in Berkeley
I’d go surfing in the morning, and end up
doing demos at home there too. Whenever I
was inspired, I would just do it. I tried to be as
disciplined and do it every day if possible. We
demoed everywhere, but really, this the most
‘New York’ record we’ve ever made.”

Green Day demoed songs as a band all over
the U.S., scoring time and tracks at Electric
Lady (NYC), Yellow Dog Studios (Austin, TX),
and JEL Recording Studios (Newport Beach,
CA). Then they returned to Jingletown, and
literally, let it rip.

“They absolutely went for first takes
and that energy,” Chris Dugan says. “Before
cutting demos at Jingletown, we converted
one of the rooms into a jam space. The band
would rehearse every day and I would track
that with just a couple mics in the room. The
guys played the songs, tried out ideas and
then we would listen back, and we’d tweak
the songs together as a band. Ultimately, that
paid off when we tracked, ’cause they would
just crank ’em out. It was great.”

Armstrong concurs. “We were so well
rehearsed we just went in and blasted
through the songs, three records in three
months,” he recalls. “We knew the songs and
all of our parts and all the arrangements, so it
was just, ‘Let’s rock out.’”

“Our intent was to be a little more ‘garage
band,’” Rob Cavallo adds. “It had a lot to
do with pre-production, though we had
specific room mics and ways to make the
[mix] sound what I would call ‘hi-fi garage
rock.’ You’re hearing two guitars (including
second guitarist Jason White), bass, drums
and vocals recorded in a very raw, unaffected
manner. It’s very old school and natural, not
a lot of EQ and no effects, just natural reverb
rooms.”

For Dugan, who was encouraged to go
production crazy on 21st Century Breakdown,
Green Day’s initiative to pare it back and
make it raw hit a harmonious internal chord.

“This was a more stripped-down
approach in every regard: the music was
stripped down, and so was the tracking,”
Dugan explains. “There are some similarities
between these records and 21st Century
Breakdown, but it’s more stripped down
overall. Some noises would pop up and we
wouldn’t chase them down, we would leave
them in. We didn’t spend time nitpicking
anything, it was all about the vibe of each
song. As long as everything was jelling and
locking together, everyone was cool with it.
I was always on guard: ‘Oh shit, I’m hearing
stuff left and right, a bum note here or
there. Should I cut it out? Mute it? It was,
‘No, let it roll.’”

Cavallo and Dugan looked to AC/DC’s
Back in Black as a sonic template, adopting
its one-two (don’t forget -three) punch
of minimal miking techniques and headpummeling
goodness to make those about to
rock completely satisfied.

“We weren’t trying to re-create Back
in Black, but use it as inspiration,” Dugan
explains. “Guitar amps were miked with one
mic, and we didn’t go for such huge drum
sounds. The last record was recorded at
Ocean Way because of their amazing drum
room; that’s everyone’s favorite drum room.
But again, this was more bare-bones. These
three records are definitely a departure
from the production you heard on the last
two records. The last record in particular
we added extra guitars and layers of things.
There is absolutely no layering on this
record. There are two guitar parts, bass and
drums and vocals, and a lead guitar. That’s
it. We recorded acoustic guitar and strings
for a couple songs, but for the most part it’s
straightforward rock and roll.”

Before tracking began, Green Day ditched
their Dalcon 32x24 board (used primarily
for playback) for a refurbished Neve 8068
32-channel recording console purchased
from Vintage King Audio in Ferndale,
Michigan. Additional mods made the Neve
even more flexible.

“We had a guy up in the Bay Area, Sean
Green, do a really cool fader-reverse mod
which added some cool routing options
for playback and mixing,” Dugan says. “I
was drooling going to work every day on
the Neve. The 8068 is a classic rock-androll
desk. We used it for both tracking and
monitoring, straight into Pro Tools 10.
We used Neve 1073 preamps on guitars, a
Chandler LTD-1 for tracking vocals; bass
went through the Neve 8068, and drums
almost entirely through the Neve, but the
kick drum went through the LTD-1 and snare
through a Vintech Audio X73.”

In keeping with Green Day’s simpler
approach, they avoided the corporate studios
of L.A. for the homey climate of their native
Jingletown in Oakland. The Neve 8068
console was the final element in making their
home-base studio capable of creating an oldschool,
yet clean, classic rock sound.

“The guys said, ‘Let’s not go to L.A., let’s
do this at home, ourselves,’ “ Dugan recalls,
“and that was part of what prompted buying
the Neve desk. ‘We don’t need to go to L.A.
for a huge sound; let’s make a record that
doesn’t sound like that. Let’s make a record
here; what do we need?’ So I went looking
and found the Neve.”

In addition to purchasing the Neve
8068, Green Day completely
renovated Jingletown’s Studio A.
“The [425-square-foot] control
room was completely remodeled,”
Dugan explains. “Kevin Hughes
designed it; he’s an amazing acoustician.
Dennis Stearns did the installation. This is
where the band recorded Warning. And we
demoed everything for American Idiot in
that room. But we completely overhauled
the room, treated the ceiling, treated all the
walls. The biggest change was at the rear of
the room where there were doors leading
into a machine room. We removed the
doors and built a sort of false wall with all
this crazy batting in it. [The backside of the
wall was covered in special wood to which
holes were drilled.] That turned the back
room into a huge bass trap. The bass trap
is approximately 12x8. The low end would
filter through the wall and get trapped in that
room and in then never come back out. The
low end filters straight through it and just
blows right past you. The low end doesn’t
build up and bounce off the back of the wall,
like you would typically expect sitting in
front of a wall.

“Now when we monitor playback,” he
continues, “we get a clearer window of
the music. In a room with a lot of low-end
buildup, if I wasn’t in tune with the room or
I wasn’t aware of it, I would probably cut a
bunch of low end off the bass guitar and bass
drum because it would sound too big. When
in reality, if you listen to it in a car or on a
hi-fi system, you’d wonder where the low
end went. Now it’s like wearing prescription
glasses; everything is clearer. You have to
have a correct room for playback.”

At this point, it goes without saying
that Green Day and Dugan wanted a raw,
practically primitive sound. While the sonic
identity of ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, and ¡Tré! practically
screams more compact, streamlined and
somehow less saturated than 21st Century
Breakdown, the thing that really stands out is
its overwhelming immediacy and presence.
Clean, in-your-face, trashy, ugly? Yes. Plug-inproduced?
No.

The live at room at Jingletown, from the
drummer’s perspective.

“I’d like to say I did all sorts of rad stuff,
but we kept it very basic,” Dugan reiterates.
“It was truly the band and their choice of
instruments to make a song trashier or go for
a particular sound; they did it on their own.
I didn’t do anything with plug-ins. It was, ‘If
we need an ugly sound, let’s bring out that
sh*tty amp and crank it up.’ To me, that’s the
right way to do it. We captured what it was
that everyone wanted to do and how they
wanted it to sound. It’s more like, hit Record
and make sure that everyone is getting what
they want on a very organic level. There were
times when we would track everything live,
other times we would cut parts individually.”

Guitars, bass, drums and vocals were all
hit with the same directive: Keep it simple,
keep it real.

“I didn’t want to go for a modern Marshall
amp sound,” Armstrong says. “I wanted to do
something that sounded more like a classic
rock tone. I used a Gretsch guitar, and we
figured if we couldn’t find the exact vintage
amp we were looking for we would just
build it. But I did use a Vox AC 30 and a 1974
Marshall JTM45. We miked the room and
captured that.”

Where Armstrong used four different
amp/cab combinations on the last album,
this time, two amps and one 2x12 cab apiece
between two guitarists fit the bill, miked by
a single AKG 414 through a Neve 1073 pre.
“Another factor is the second guitar player,
Jason White,” Dugan says. “Each guy tracked
a pass, so we had two guitar parts by two
different guys on every song. They each had
had different amps, Billie through AC 30,
Jason through the JTM 45.”

Armstrong also changed out vocal mics
but his tried-and-true tracking approach
remained. “I’ve always been quick at
recording vocals,” Armstrong told this
reporter in 2009. “It’s about warming up,
getting my throat and chest in the right
position, and then emotionally preparing
to go for it. When you go through the demo
process, you know what kind of emotion
the song will need, and when to scream and
when to whisper. This is why I like to take
time and really get all the arrangements done
and know what kind of vocal take I am going
to end up doing before I start recording the
album tracks. At the vocal session, I start
softly and try not to overdo it, so I don’t
ruin myself for the day. I get myself in the
zone, and eventually, my voice just starts to
happen. I sing about eight inches from the
mic, and throw down around three takes.
We’ll comp performances if necessary, but,
most of the time, it’s all pretty much live
takes.”

“This time, I wasn’t comfortable using
one of the big microphones with the panty
hose on it [a Telefunken U47m was used on
21st Century Breakdown],” he says today. “I
wanted to use something that was more
handheld, ’cause I was so used to that
doing demos. I feel like I have more control
over my voice using a handheld mic. And I
wanted more of a live approach to my vocals,
and this is more of a live approach than
we’ve ever captured with my vocals than on
any album, ever.”

Dugan used a Shure SM7 for 95 percent
of Armstrong’s vocals. “He felt comfortable
holding it in his hand, and he didn’t have
to stand in this little taped-off box on the
floor. So SM7/Chandler Ltd 1/Pro Tools, no
compression, no nothing. I did EQ the toms
kick and snare. But no EQ on the guitars or
the bass, really straightforward.”

For Dirnt’s bass, Dugan used a Sennheiser
MD 421 on an Ampeg SVT bass cab thru a
Neve 31102 pre, then a DI out of the back
of a new Fender Bassman head. DI was
“post preamp of amp so I got cool grit,” then
another DI off Dirnt’s Fender Precision;
ultimately Dugan summed cab, bass DI, and
cab DI.

Rather than mic each drum, top and
bottom, as on the last album, Dugan pared
down the mics while remaining basically
true to his previous setup. “I used a Shure
Beta 52 on the inside of the bass drum,”
Dugan says, “then the NS10 speaker trick
on the outside of the bass drum. I used
Josephson E22s on the toms; for the last
record we double-miked toms, top and
bottom, but not this time. I stuck with the
Telefunken M80 for the snare. I used the
same overheads as last time, a pair of ELA
M 251s. Then AKG 451s on the ride cymbal
and hi-hat.”

¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, and ¡Tré!’s back-to-the-bars
approach is obviously closer to a homestudio
intent than the megabuck investment
most likely incurred on 21st Century
Breakdown. It gave Dugan newfound respect
for the home recordist’s means and methods.

“After going through [a simpler approach]
myself, [at first] I wanted to reach for a lot
of those tools and toys and really mess with
stuff. But we just relied on the instruments.
There’s no right or wrong way to achieve
something that’s in your head or a sound you
are searching for. It might require plug-ins,
EQ, or nothing at all. There are a lot of things
you can do with just a microphone. I would
tell someone to start with the sound source
first. Try to tweak it and get it to a good place
first before having to reach for all sorts of
processing. Capturing the source in a very
clean way is the right place to start in my
book.”

Releasing three albums in a row might
appear as hubris, or the out-of-touch
provocations of multi-millionaire rock stars,
but ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, and ¡Tré!’s proof lies in the
music. From ¡Uno!’s thoughtful opener,
“Nuclear Family” and ¡Dos! stocking-stuffer
“Stop When the Red Lights Flash” to ¡Tré!’s
galvanic “Sex, Drugs & Violence,” this
punch-drunk trinity reflects not only Green
Day’s desire to reconnect with their fans but
a return to a simpler recording ethos that
made them punk rock icons, Broadway stars,
and wealthy beyond their wildest dreams.

“A lot of people were asking me, ‘Will
you ever do a record like Kerplunk or Dookie
again?’,” Armstrong says. “But I had to be
inspired. After 21st Century Breakdown, I felt
inspired to get in a room together with Mike
and Tré and bash out some songs. We really
wanted to capture the sound of everybody
being in the same room together and to really
bring the listener inside with us. We really
captured the energy of why we like playing
music. It’s sort of a classic-sounding Green
Day record.”

Ken Micallef has covered music for all of the
usual suspects, including DownBeat, The
Grammys, and Rolling Stone. His first book,
Classic Rock Drummers (Hal Leonard), is
currently in reprint status while he ponders
the sonic perfection and current resurgence of
the vinyl LP.